Achaque
[Props to Teddy Roethke]

I have known cities
ravenous in their emptiness,
forever tormented by their
own shallowness,
searing in their solitude
for so many millions.
I have known towns with
no center, no one
calling them home,
not really,
no lifeblood but for
a liquor store and bar.
I have witnessed the grime
accumulating on my own
endless streets,
clogging up my throughways,
sullying my dreams.
And still imagining fantastic,
palatial, boundless while
entirely concrete
metropolitan complexes,
I make my way past
the drunks and beggars and
crack whores, always looking
up it seems, up to street
signs, up to building tops,
up to some awaited future
that hasn't yet come and
will likely crumble,
imploded in the way of
so many abandoned hopes.
I ache in some way for
all those places about
to be lost and so
forever treasured.

(2008)